Manna left the room.
It was late before those assembled in the Villa separated. The Professorin must spend the night there. Sonnenkamp would not have it otherwise. He gave her the best room in the house, and Eric sat by his mother's bed until she fell asleep.
But without, on the banks of the Rhine, stood a multitude, washing their black faces clean again, and recovering from the effects of the new wine. In the night a black wave rolled past the Villa, and down the river to the sea.
Oh! If the black deed could only be thus wiped off, and sunk in the ocean of Eternity!
BOOK XIII.
CHAPTER I.
OBLITERATED TRACES.
The gardeners raked smooth the footpaths: they bound up the down-trodden shrubs again, removing the broken ones. Even the grooms assisted to-day in the garden, while up in the house the glaziers were already busy, putting in new squares of plate-glass. When the gentlemen and ladies wake up, they shall see as little as possible of last night's tumult.
No one in the whole house awoke until the morning was far spent. Even Manna was not visible. Perhaps this was the first time in her life that she had omitted going to church. The night's experience had been hard for her to bear; for when, after the riot, she came to her mother, the latter kept crying out,—
"They will tar and feather him! They will tar and feather him! Oh! why did he go among our enemies?"